Ilja Dragonov was interviewed on “Under The Ring” to talk about his upcoming match with Carmelo Hayes for the NXT Championship at NXT No Mercy on October 1st:
Dragonov said, “Camelo Hayes has had a lot of impressive performances as the champion, and who is better to compete with him than this person like me, because when you look the time that I’m back in NXT, the performances I delivered, the way I make people feel something when I step into this ring, and I think this is the perfect combination to make the people excited because the people want to feel something when they see a performance like we both present, and we presented this performance already. So the second part is going to be an add on to this and it’s going to be nothing different than an exciting performance which is a must see for the people to see.”
Ilja Dragunov talking about what made his match with Gunther in NXT UK so memorable:
“I think this industry is all about presenting a fight. That’s easy to get because the physicality is something every person believes. There’s so many different ways to attract the attention of the audience. One of the ways that will always work, doesn’t matter where, everywhere in my opinion, is physicality. If you present a real fight, if you present something where you mean something, where the sounds of the strikes and everything, it just catches your attention. So this is exactly how it is to be in the ring. It gets physical. If you’re going to go into a fight, you’re going to be prepared, especially as me being more, let’s say, more of the underdog person. I’m not the heaviest one, I’m not the tallest one, but I definitely have the biggest fighting spirit in this industry. I fully believe that. If you bring everything of that to the table, you’re going to expect to suffer. You’re going to expect to feel fatigued like never, ever before. I remember the matches in NXT UK. After the match was over, I literally, or even between in the match. I literally thought I don’t know how to keep going anymore. I just don’t know how to keep up anymore, like, just body wise. I wanted to, I didn’t know how to continue, and after the match, when it was over, I thought I can’t even move anymore.I don’t know how to move anymore.”
On who he would like to wrestle from the main roster in WWE:
“There are countless people. This company is filled with an unlimited amount of great talent. So there’s so many people I think I could create something special with. One of the people that comes to my mind is definitely Shinsuke Nakamura and also like Seth Rollins who also has this artistic, expressive way with the people. You see how over he is and how much attention he gets. Definitely, I mean, as long as the chance is still there, maybe with one of the people who were the first I’ve been watching like Rey Mysterio, for example.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Under the Ring with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
